That night, with Ell, he recounted his conversation with Molly, her irreverent, refreshing attitude toward the Home, her genuine affection for Aunt Helen, and her unconventional down to earth language.
“It takes a special kind of person to be a social worker in a nursing home. She’s upbeat to maintain her own sanity. I couldn’t do it,” Eleanor said.
Mitch gave Ell the somber statistics. According to Molly, one in five old people became deeply depressed in the first year of being “put away,” and almost one third died in the first three years. Of course, Molly had said, if she was suffering from dementia or Alzheimer’s, participating in family activities was not going to prevent further mental decline. It could only delay it. The way to help Aunt Helen was to involve her in the family and their activities. The more she was out of the Home and with the family, the better. If she felt abandoned, she would probably go down hill faster.
Ell listened thoughtfully. “We’ve been doing that already. It’ll be more difficult in the winter. Aunt Helen can’t be outdoors in bad weather. We don’t want her to catch pneumonia. But she can do the things we do with Amy and Josh, go to museums or watch DVDs at home. We can wheel her around the mall, have coffee, get her out among people.”
“In other words, in our usual Farber style we’ll muddle through,” he said smiling.
“We’ll manage and there is more planning to our muddling than you think. Let’s just take it one week at a time.”
Chapter Seven
Damn crazy weather, Mitch thought, as he drove through the icy slush up Connecticut Avenue. One week it’s in the upper 60s and the next its bitter cold, windy and snowing like crazy. What ever happened to the regular DC winter weather pattern, maybe a white Christmas, a cold January and February with one or two heavy snow storms, a final wintery blast at the end of February and then the beginning of spring? It was good that he had left work early to pick up Aunt Helen for her eye exam. One thing was still the same, he thought. Traffic in DC comes to a standstill when it snows. When he and Eleanor had first moved to the city twenty five years ago, the joke was the Soviets should attack the United States just after the first forecast flakes hit the ground. Everyone would be leaving work to avoid the ‘blizzard’ and to stock up on toilet paper. The city streets would be gridlocked. He sat through another cycle of light changes and finally began creeping ahead at less than 15 mph. Aunt Helen’s appointment was at 3:30 and it was almost 2pm. They would barely make it. She didn’t walk as much as before. Pushing her in a wheel chair was faster, but getting her in and out of the chair and loading and unloading it from the car was time consuming.
He signed in quickly at the Home’s reception desk, checking the large clock on the wall, wrote down 2:20 in the time in column and stomped the snow off his boots in the lobby. He waited impatiently for the elevator and had his blue wool ski hat and overcoat off before he walked into the oppressive heat of the third floor. The Home was kept warm because the residents, many with poor circulation, were always cold. Still, it was incongruous to come in from a snowstorm and see the nursing staff in short sleeves, with the residents bundled up in sweaters. He found Aunt Helen in the tv room, her white hair barely showing above the back of her wheel chair, with the name ‘Plonsker’ written on masking tape stuck to the dark green plastic upright support. She was wearing red pants and a flowered yellow blouse under her white cardigan. Several tissues were stuffed in a garish pea green paisley scarf worn, as a belt, around her waist. The outfit clashed, but they were going to a doctor’s office, not a restaurant, he thought. Besides, there was no time to change.
“Thank goodness you’re here. I knew you would come. I need to talk to you,” she said without greeting him. “It’s important.”
“That’s why I’m here,” he said cheerfully as he wheeled her into her room. “Remember we have an eye doctor’s appointment today. I’ll get your coat and we can talk in the car.”
“They tried to rape me last night,” she declared. “I fought them off. I screamed so loudly they ran away.”
“Who, Aunt Helen? Who tried to rape you?” he said, trying to sound sincerely concerned, having already dismissed her allegation as another one of her hallucinations. He found her hooded dark blue woolen coat in the closet and helped her stand up and slipped her arms into the sleeves, buttoned up the front and sat her down in the wheelchair. He smiled to himself, thinking of Josh’s description of his great aunt as a Jawa from Star Wars.
She looked up at him, surprised by his question. “The men of course. That’s all everyone has on their minds. Sex. They whisper about me and that nice Mr. Paul just because we sit together sometimes. When we leave now, the women will talk about us. They have filthy minds and they’re all prostitutes. They sell themselves for extra food and cigarettes.”
“Aunt Helen. They don’t allow smoking here. There are no cigarettes.” As soon as he said it, he regretted trying to reason with her. Molly had advised that reasoning was the wrong approach. They were out in the hall now, almost to the nurses’ station.
“They’re all whores,” she said loudly and emphatically. “Whores and thieves.”
Mitch felt his face flush. “I’m taking my aunt to a doctor’s appointment, Ms. Jackson,” he said to an African American woman at the desk, addressing her after reading her name tag. Amina got up, came around, smoothed her white pants, knelt before Aunt Helen and took her hands in hers.
“Keep warm Helen. It is still snowing out. Come back to us safely,” she said calmly.
Aunt Helen smiled. “Thank you, Amina. This is my nephew, Mitchell. He is my sister Lillian’s son. We’ve talked about her. Can we bring you back something? Maybe kosher pickles? Some hot coffee?”
“No thank you, Helen. I will be going home myself soon. I will see you tomorrow and you can tell me all about your doctor’s visit.” She stood up and held out her hand. “I am pleased to meet you. Your aunt is one of my favorite people.” She was a few inches taller than him, her head and shoulders covered with a long pale pink thin shawl. He couldn’t place her accent. British of course, but not quite. He thanked her for taking care of Aunt Helen, said something about being late already and looking forward to talking another time, and whisked his aunt down the hall.
“She’s the only nice one,” Aunt Helen said in the elevator. “The others beat you and steal your clothing. I can hear them having sex in the closet in the hall when I go by in the morning to breakfast.”
“What about Molly Bernstein? You like her, don’t you? And the Rabbi?”
“They’re ok but they’re not around all the time. Now what are you going to do about the men trying to rape me? I can’t come back here, Mitchell. Can you find me another hotel?”
“It’s snowing out. Every hotel in the city will be full,” Mitch said lying. He nodded to the male receptionist and quickly considered how Aunt Helen would react to being left alone with him, while he went to get the car. The week day receptionist, Mr. Spencer, was a thin, elderly black man. His small head was topped with closely cropped white hair, combed forward, Roman style. He wore round rimless eyeglasses and sported a pencil thin, grey flecked mustache, which gave him a mousey appearance. He had a sweet disposition and was polite to the point of being obsequious. He was the most unlikely person to be accused of rape, Mitch thought. But he had learned, since bringing Aunt Helen down from New London, that logic didn’t apply in his aunt’s case. Given her frame of mind, he thought it was better not to take a chance of her screaming rape. He pulled her hood up and wheeled her on to the wet pavement under the covered entrance and through two inches of snow in the parking lot. She said something he couldn’t hear and was still talking as he eased her into the front seat, folded the wheel chair and in his haste to throw it in the wagon, brushed a wet wheel against his overcoat, leaving a dirty stain.
“Aunt Helen,” he said as he drove carefully down the long driveway and back toward Rockville Pike. “You have to stay in the Home. I’ll talk to Molly when we get back.
Maybe we can get an extra security person to stay on at the Nurses Station tonight.”
“That won’t work,” she snorted. “He’d only sleep with the nurses. They’re all sluts. Except Amina, of course. She is a well brought up young lady.”
It was snowing harder. The County had not replowed Rockville Pike since he had driven to the Home. The slush was deeper now and the sidewalks and grass were covered in snow. He hunched forward, peering through the smeared windshield, trying to find the turnoff for the ophthalmologist’s office. He explained to his aunt that today’s appointment was simply an exam and consultation to test her eyesight and discuss what to do, if anything.
“So, I won’t be staying in the hospital overnight?”
“No, Aunt Helen. This just a doctor’s office. It’s not a place to stay overnight.”
“Why can’t I stay with you?”
“Because we can’t take care of you, Aunt Helen,” he said sharply, intending to head off any further questions from her.
She nodded and fell silent. Mitch hoped that the eye examination and the drive would make her forget her obsessive fantasy about last night’s rape attempt. How is it possible, he thought that most days, she couldn’t remember by lunchtime what she had for breakfast, but she could remember an event which she imagined had happened the night before.
He found the driveway to the building with the ophthalmologist’s office, hit the corner of the snow covered curb with the right rear tire, rattling the wheel chair in the back, and waking Aunt Helen up from her snooze.
“Where are we?,” she asked confused, peering out the window.
“We’re at the eye doctor’s,” he said. The Home had recommended Dr. William Pappas as an experienced ophthalmologist. Maynard Lewis, the RN for his aunt’s floor had told him that Dr. Pappas had a large geriatric practice and was very good with elderly people. Mitch had asked what he meant and Maynard had explained the doctor was able to deal with patients who were not all there mentally. He hoped, as he helped Aunt Helen out of her hooded coat in the doctor’s reception area, it was true, because today she seemed to him to be more out of it than usual. They were the only patients in the waiting room. There must have been a lot of cancellations due to the bad weather, he thought. Mitch picked up a copy of National Geographic and was showing Aunt Helen some of the photos when an assistant called his name. He wheeled Aunt Helen into an examining room. There were usual eye charts on the walls, a dark brown shade over the one narrow window, drawn down with the slats closed and a large padded chair in the center, to which was attached a long black crane like arm and a chin support. The equipment was an array of soft gun metal grey, black knobs, chrome shafts and lenses.
“So. Do you like National Geographic?” Dr. Pappas asked Aunt Helen after introducing himself and getting her settled in the examination chair. He was middle aged with thinning black hair, a prominent broad nose and smile wrinkles at the corners of his dark eyes. He seemed like the kind of person who enjoyed his work and life and found humor in both. Mitch moved the wheel chair to the side and stood next to his aunt.
“I can’t travel any more but I like the photographs,” she replied.
“Good. That’s one way to visit foreign countries and discover other people and places. I want you to look at the National Geo magazine you have and pick out the one photo you think has the brightest colors.”
“Is this a test?” Aunt Helen asked warily.
“Sort of. It helps me find out the way you see colors and objects.”
“If it ‘s a test, do I get a prize?” she said grinning impishly.
“I promise you a prize at the end of the exam.”
“Oh goody.” She looked up at Mitch. “Remember, he promised.” She started quickly turning the pages. Mitch looked over her shoulder. There were photos of Tibetan monks in bright saffron robes, a feature on Siberia with indoor shots of heated swimming pools, indigenous people herding reindeer, colorful apartment buildings together with tall yellow construction cranes, reflected in a canal and gas flares at dusk. Another article was about nudibranchs, sea going slugs with a variety of brilliantly colored tentacles. Aunt Helen studied the pictures of a central Asian snow leopard. The article was entitled “Out of the Shadows,” The first picture was of a leopard emerging from the dark background of mountains at dusk.
“Nice looking pussy cat,” she said. “Can I go back over it again?”
“Sure,” Dr. Pappas replied. “Take your time.”
“I think this one,” Aunt Helen said, pointing at a photo of a snow covered oil rig on a pad, surrounded by dull blues, browns and greens of a Siberian wetland. That’s a peculiar one to pick, Mitch thought. He never would have selected that one as the brightest in the magazine.
“Good, Helen. That’s a nice choice,” Dr. Pappas said. “Now, I’m going to put some drops in your eyes to dilate your pupils. Then, I’ll look at your eyes and let you know what I see. Just tilt you head back, look up at the ceiling. Good, gooood, very good. Now the other eye. Here’s a Kleenex to catch the drips.”
“I have a tissue,” Aunt Helen said, automatically pulling one from her scarf belt and dabbing her cheek, the liquid leaving a slight yellow stain on her Kleenex..
“It will take about ten minutes,” Dr. Pappas said to Mitch. “I’ll be back.”
“How did I do?” Aunt Helen asked when he had left.
“Fine. You did fine,” Mitch said, rubbing his aunt’s shoulders.
“That’s good. I didn’t want to embarrass the family by seeming stupid. How are things in your neighborhood?” she asked anxiously. “There isn’t any trouble, is there?”
Mitch hadn’t any idea what she was talking about but didn’t want her saying weird things in the doctor’s office. “Everything’s ok, Aunt Helen. Eleanor, Josh and Amy, we’re all ok.”
“Good, all quiet. That’s good. It’s the same in my neighborhood but you know,” she said, raising a cautionary finger. “Anything can happen any time.” She leaned back against the headrest and dozed. Mitch shook her gently when Dr. Pappas returned and helped her get positioned on the chinrest.
“Forehead way forward. That’s good. Now stare at the X next to the light. Good.” Dr. Pappas kept up a reassuring patter while he peered into each of her eyes, talked her through the glaucoma pressure test and acted as if she had been his star patient when it was all over.
“Well, Helen,” he said. “It’s no surprise. You have cataracts. The one in your left eye is thicker than the one in your right. That’s why everything seems grey to you. We can help you to see clearer. More like in Technicolor.” He turned to Mitch. “She doesn’t see brightness or sharp colors. That’s why she picked out the photo she did. The white was in stark contrast to the background. The ones you and I would have selected were for her all dull without contrast,” he explained.
“Isn’t a cataract operation risky for someone my aunt’s age?” Mitch asked.
“No. Not really.” Dr. Pappas shrugged. “I’ve done it on older people, in worse shape than your aunt. It’s a simple, outpatient procedure. We take out the natural lens and replace it with an artificial one, called an intraocular lens. We use a mild sedative which shouldn’t be a problem but I’ll talk to the Home’s physician, get the full picture of your aunt’s health and what medicines she’s taking. In younger patients, we can correct for distance or arms length vision and make it better. I don’t see the need to do that for someone your aunt’s age. My recommendation is we do the left eye and see how it goes. You’ll have sign the consent form, of course. We can decide about the right eye later.”
“Helen?” Dr. Pappas asked, “Would you like me to fix it so you see better with more color?”
“I don’t like what I see now. The world is ugly and people are mean. Why should I want to see better?” She looked up at him, her upper lip overlapping the lower one, a sign Mitch recognized that she wasn’t going to say anymore.
Dr. Pappas considered her question seriously for a moment before r
esponding. “I know the world is not a perfect place, Helen, and people aren’t perfect either. But you have your nephew and family and other people you know and like. You’ll be able to see how much they love you. How happy they are to see you. And you’ll see things of beauty you may not have noticed before. You shouldn’t deprive yourself of those opportunities.”
She closed her eyes and Mitch didn’t know whether she was thinking or beginning to nod off.
“I see my mother and my sister, Lillian, sometimes. It would be nice to be able to see them better,” she said slowly. “Ok, I’ll do it. Mitchell,” she said wagging a finger at him. “You forgot about my prize for today, but I didn’t. What is it? What do I get?”
“Ah,” Dr. Pappas exclaimed, rubbing his hands together and breaking into a broad smile. “We have the greatest, newest coffee machine in our office,” he said. “It makes all kinds of coffee with flavors, French vanilla, hazelnut, you name it. It even makes hot chocolate? It’s your choice. Whatever you want,” he said as Mitch wheeled her out of the examining room.
“Does it make espresso? I used to love espresso,” she said wistfully.
“It sure does. You can drink it while your nephew completes a bit of paper work.”
Aunt Helen sat contentedly in the reception area loudly sipping her espresso from a blue and white porcelain cup, holding the saucer with her other hand. There were several openings in the doctor’s schedule for next week which had been reserved for treatment of patients who would have been examined on this snowy day but had cancelled. Mitch checked his pocket calendar, saw that he had no meetings scheduled for Wednesday at his office and booked Aunt Helen for the left eye outpatient procedure at 2:30, a week from today.
The Orange Tree Page 10
